Friday, February 02, 2007

Today, I spent some time collecting data in the frame shop in preparation for our meeting Monday. I mapped out the physical layout of the area including the location of materials and equipment. I'm going to get one of our CAD engineers to draw it up on the computer, and then we'll turn it into a spaghetti diagram that shows how people and material move around the area.

I also observed a frame being built and kept tabs on the timeframes for each step in the operation. The workflow was pretty smooth, but there were certainly opportunities for improvement.

I took about 30 photos of the area and began an inventory of material. This will aid us later when we report the improvements to our executive team. We'll be able to have before & after photos, and we should have some reduced inventory levels to report.

That's all for today. The next step is to have our strategy meeting Monday with the Team Leader and Supervisor of the frame shop. Check in early next week for another update.